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I've backed up to the point of doing the initial power up of the boards. No bob or Mach connected.

What I did when I smoked the one board:
This was after the problems started. I had found a loose wire, so I started checking the other wires. I wiggled the 120v power in on one drive and the ground wire came out, leaving the positive wire in the connection. It melted the fuse holder next to the plug.
Here is a picture of my boards.
have fun
i_r_

If you have the campbell bob, and you have the little axis indicator
board you can see it all working without connecting the motors or
even the drives.With amch loaded and the campbell xml file,using the arrow keys will tell if steps are working.

I dumped mach and re-installed. When I hit the button to move an axis, the indicators on the bob light up, so at least I know its communicating. I'm trying to tune the other two axis', but the boards still fault out as soon as I turn on the dc drive power.
i_r_

A loose power wire at 120 volts on power side or motor side, can definitely damage a board. The inrush current from the powersupply is deadly.
Send it back and i can fix it.

Does your estop circuit turn off the 12 volt side ? If this power has a bounce in it (from a relay or contactor) it can cause the drive to blow because the cpu doesn't initialize properly. I've recently changed the code for a better delay and soft startup.

The 12 power supply to the boards doesn't run through my estop at this time.I have it connected to a power strip with a diferent ground source. It is on the same power strip as the pc. The x board comes up everytime. I've gone through the initial tuning, but the two boards still fault. The green and red light will come on, the red light will go out, the red light by the pot will come on, go out, then the red light will start flashing. Do I need to send the other boards back for the softstart code?

Up to now, the drive didn't have low voltage detection on the power side. Since the drive is opto-isolated the control side didn't know if there was voltage on the power side. I've made a mod that uses the current warning optocoupler as a low voltage monitor (or no voltage on power side). This takes away the current warning adjustment, but adds a needed feature.
I've also added soft start on reset and the choice to have the drive reset when main power is reapplied or to wait and soft start on repower.

Of the repairs of Viper 200's i've had, most people have said it happened after a reset. So this will make the drive more flexable on how the user has connected his Estop circuit.

Boxed up the boards last night. Will mail them at noon today.I'm going to work on wiring my VFD while waiting on the vipers. I also have to find out what a varistor is.
Don't worry Jackal, I'm even documenting my mistakes. Are you the Jackal from PM? Man, those guys get rabid when anyone mentions retrofit.
onward thru the fog
i_r_